P S 
 
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 1916 
 
 MAIN 
 
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 UC-NRLF 
 
GIFT OF 
 
SONNETS 
 
 1913-1916 
 
 WHEATON HALE BREWER 
 1916 
 
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 To My Aunt; A Dedication 
 
 Out of the tangled wilderness of youth, 
 A guide, a friend, a worthy leader came: 
 She led my faltering fingers in a game 
 
 Whose ways were wisdom, and whose aim was truth. 
 
 And so I wrought my verses, rude, uncouth; 
 But she scanned my poor efforts with the same 
 Respect she gave the poets of deathless fame, 
 
 Noting my errors in words full of ruth. 
 
 Such was my guardian spirit and my guide; 
 
 And since those days, in all the songs I ve sung, 
 Her words as trenchant weapons by my side 
 
 I hold, to purge the excess of the tongue, 
 And clear my path of visions that deride 
 My hold upon the ladder s lowest rung. 
 
 November, 1916. 
 
To The Clouds-; A Sonnet 
 
 Sails of the gay-painted ship of the sky, 
 Birds of the storm, and children of the wind, 
 Why flee ye now so fast? What do ye find 
 
 Yonder, beyond those heaving seas that lie 
 
 Half-way around the globe? Or do ye fly 
 
 The weary wastes of air in wanderings blind, 
 Seeking but to enmingle with thy kind? 
 
 Say! will thy object fail should the wind die? 
 
 Nay! I know that ye have an object true 
 So tell me, clouds of the evanescent blue 
 Tell me, oh tell me, where and what ye seek; 
 
 Perchance upon Imagination s wings 
 
 Swinging aloft o er wave and plain and peak, 
 
 I seek my love, the while life s soft wind sings. 
 
 May, 1913. 
 
 To The Canyon Wren 
 
 Thine need not be such heavenly music clear 
 As peals in vibrant chords that cannot die; 
 Thine need not be that song which cleaves the sky; 
 
 Then hastes away for all the weary year. 
 
 For, Canyon Wren, when thy sweet song sounds near, 
 And the great cliffs in echoes make reply, 
 From every breast all toils and troubles fly, 
 
 And in their place come memories too dear 
 
 For voice. For music s charm is what it makes 
 Of us, not what we make of it. And so, 
 I say, when in the morn, or noon, or eve, 
 
 Thy sweet and happy echo trills and shakes, 
 1 thrill to hear it, and I truly know 
 It leavs a joyousness else can leave. 
 
 June, 1914. Courtesy Santa Barbara Press. 
 
 Burlingame Advance. 
 
To The Memorial Tablet 
 
 Cold bronze, and colder marble, still and mute 
 As those chill forms thy letters call to mind, 
 Stretched, voiceless to the weltering waves and wind, 
 
 What matters now the song, or cheery flute? 
 
 Rather upon some melancholy lute 
 
 We should thy dirge in mournful numbers find, 
 For sorrow turns, in music, to its kind, 
 
 And grief, by music, seems less destitute. 
 
 Wherefore I bid ye, bronze, and marble cold, 
 Take on a more ethereal, lighter form; 
 Cast off thy cold externals to the storm, 
 
 And wear but memory s vesture, spun with gold 
 Which will those lofty feelings well preserve 
 That brave words win, and braver deeds deserve. 
 
 April, 1915. Courtesy S. M. S. Skirmisher. 
 
 Burlingame Advance. 
 
 A Tribute 
 
 To thee oh poppy homage do I bring, 
 And to the poet who first gave her voice 
 To all thy beauties: who made to rejoice 
 
 The hearts of mortals at a fragile thing 
 
 A golden poppy in the emerald spring. 
 It is beyond my skill, and e en my choice 
 To raise in rivalry my puerile voice 
 
 In praise of California s flower king, 
 
 And of its painter. Yet I must, express, 
 For thee, fair poppy, a great tenderness. 
 Over the fields thy radiance rims the view 
 Painting the hills in patterns ever new. 
 
 The essence of the spring is thine in truth, 
 Gold poppy, token of eternal youth. 
 (To Miss Ina Coolbrith.) 
 May, 1915. Courtesy Burlingame Advance. 
 
July Fourth, 1915 
 
 A nation s birthday! The long years have passed 
 Since freemen won from soverign their release 
 And built a union that can never cease, 
 
 Where concord, living, learning, have at last 
 
 No more by warring dynasties harrassed, 
 Grown to be free from royalty s caprice, 
 And our broad land stands foremost now in peace, 
 
 While far-off nations, starving, have amassed 
 
 Huge armies meant to rend the world apart, 
 And stain the world with blood from freedom s heart. 
 Then celebrate the birthday of our land , 
 
 The home of freedom, liberty s fair strand. 
 
 Rejoice in peace, and guard with jealous eye 
 Our nation s birthday that must never die. 
 July, 1915. Courtesy Burlingame Advance. 
 
 To The Campanile. 
 
 White Campanile! Arrow tipped with chimes, 
 Thy base enfounded in the ages lore, 
 Thy summit lift thou upward, more and more 
 
 Into the pureness of those sunny climes, 
 
 Unfettered from the rigor of old times. 
 Born out of wisdom, to be free you soar, 
 Impatient, from earth s time and tide bound shore, 
 
 Calling to look from earth with thee betimes, 
 
 We toilers of the land. We may descry 
 
 A meaning in thy purity of dress, 
 Belled arrow, shooting upward to the sky; 
 
 Thy message is to all who would progress; 
 That beauty of itself, will soar on high, 
 
 And blent with knowledge, will bring happiness. 
 
 August, 1915. 
 
On Leaving The Exposition 
 
 i saw amid the star-shine in the west, 
 The fairy city of a thousand dreams, 
 Bay-bordered vivid with a myriad gleams 
 
 Of brilliance, where the lingering light caressed 
 
 The trees and turrets, while far-off, there pressed 
 
 White sails, so like a child s pure thought that seems 
 To drift unfettered, along fancy s streams, 
 
 And nestle in the far horizon s breast. 
 
 Turrets and banners dip away and flee 
 
 Nothing but wraith-like memories seem to stay. 
 
 Oh what a sight to gaze upon, and see 
 Fading to darkness! an etherial ray 
 
 That shows so clear, yet soft, things that will be 
 When all the world awakens to bright day. 
 
 October, 1915. Courtesy S. F. Chronicle. 
 
 I Sense The Spring 
 
 I sense the springtime in the golden glow 
 Of countless blossoms on acacia trees; 
 While soft scents float like music on the breeze 
 
 That softly sways each blossomed bough below 
 
 The panoply of sapphire-shielded sky. Row 
 Upon row, the hillcrests rise. On these 
 The new year casts its blazonry. The bees 
 
 Are humming, nectar laden, flying slow. 
 
 And songs from birds, that purl like crystal streams 
 Echo from winter s disappearing shrouds 
 
 That cross the sky, and melt, and then are furled, 
 While in their place, faint ribbons float like themes 
 Of far, celestial music. From these clouds 
 
 I sense the birth of spring in this our world. 
 March, 1916. 
 
Oh Titan Birth! 
 
 Titanic was the struggle of your birth, 
 
 Sierras, children of the rugged past! 
 
 The whole world trembled, shook, and stood aghast 
 And the high heavens blazed in awful mirth. 
 And Nature wept in pity at your dearth, 
 
 When you, the new born, shuddered in the blast; 
 
 While underneath, by pain and woe harrassed, 
 Anguished and groaned your parent-mother, Earth. 
 
 But, tall Sierras, you have reared your crests; 
 Have ripped the still air with your snowy tops, 
 Have rung the clouds of all their stolen rain, 
 And inch by inch, at countless storms behest 
 
 Back to the earth washed back by myriad drops, 
 
 Titanic still, you waste away again. 
 September, 1916. 
 
 A Guidepost On The Narrow Path 
 
 To some the sonnet is a tinted shell, 
 
 A monument a key that loosed the soul 
 Of Milton, Petrarch, Dante. Years may roll 
 
 Above it, and yet sheer from out the swell 
 
 Of Time s tumultuous ocean it shall tell 
 
 The world of hidden reefs that take stern toll 
 Of travelers seeking for life s highest goal. 
 
 A light it is, the darkness to dispel. 
 
 To me the sonnet is the still small voice; 
 
 It is the feather on the camel s back. 
 Its fairy strains may lead one to rejoice, 
 
 Or fill a lonely heart with all its lack. 
 The sonnet is the guidepost to our choice 
 
 The finger on the straight and narrow track. 
 October, 1916 
 
Ara Poi fiieihT (Whither Gone?) 
 
 I read the old Greek masters, and I feel 
 
 The pulse and thrill of those Athenian days. 
 I tread with Agammenon that .great maze 
 
 That ended neath the purple with the steel. 
 
 Prometheus within me calls to heel 
 
 The dire Jove, last judge of men s affrays, 
 And with the Colchian woman, I too praise 
 
 Athena, guard of noble Athens weal. 
 
 Where now is reverence as Orestes knew? 
 
 Where now is Justice known and sought by all? 
 
 Where generosity not shamed by greed, 
 
 And vengeance as of old, so sure, so true? 
 
 Over the deeds of Greece we draw a pall, 
 
 And turn to Christians, squabbling over creed. 
 November, 1916. 
 
 A Toast 
 
 1 well remenYber, as one spring went by, 
 
 How my small brother, fever-gripped and pale, 
 Struggled for long before he could prevail, 
 
 And turn away grim Death. I could descry 
 
 The worry in my father s face. The sigh 
 That was my mother s told how in the scale 
 The balance hung. But from that shadowy vale 
 
 He wandered back, and then, with wondering eye, 
 
 Hour by hour, day by day, I watched 
 
 My parents. Always tender, patient, mild, 
 
 Forgiving of his irritable ways 
 They were. And for the scars the hours notched 
 In those dear foreheads, watching o er the child, 
 
 I raise a toast of toasts in parent s praise. 
 December, 1916. 
 
A Christmas Sonnet 
 
 Out of the darkness comes the glinting day, 
 
 And from the moist earth comes the scented rose. 
 
 From the hard rock the crystal water flows. 
 And from the dark cloud, the bright lightenings play. 
 The storm is followed by the spring s display; 
 
 The present oft the future does disclose; 
 
 Immortal friends spring out of mortal foes; 
 And deeds uprise from words that Idlers say. 
 
 But many a heart insensate is to these, 
 
 And men too often let their good deeds die. 
 
 In place, excess and meanness, hand-in-glove, 
 Out break. Oh that this one day, men at ease, 
 Would to their hatreds and harsh thoughts reply, 
 
 That Christmas happiness is found in love. 
 December, 1916. 
 

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